![]() ![]() Of course, with all this interest, someone’s also trying to make money. In Missouri, Connecticut, and New Jersey, among other places, pickleball courts are filling up deserted mall spaces like Bed, Bath & Beyond (paying attention, Paseo Nuevo?). Some studies say the growth has been from the low hundreds of thousands of players to nearly nine million American pickleballers in the last half-dozen years alone, let alone a growing international contingent: boule de cornichon, anyone?īeing at first a game most beloved by the graying set (but with interest expanding downward in age), pickleball nationally is packing courts into retirement communities like they once put down shuffleboard alleys. It was a massive dose of adrenaline, and pickleball has exploded, as documented by ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and lifestyle sections of media everywhere. Then came the pandemic, and the sport proved to also be perfect for outdoor social distancing plus exercise. Retirement communities in Arizona and Florida seemed to be the forerunners, as the sport proved to be perfect for active seniors (and seniors-to-be). Pickleball hibernated in the hinterlands of America’s diverse, slightly wacky sports community until perhaps 10-12 years ago, when, for reasons that remain murky, it began to slowly shoot out buds of interest in more and more places. Apparently, in crew racing, a “pickle boat” is one made up of random rowers, much as the game came together from disparate parts. ![]() (The game’s name, by the way, does NOT come from one of the inventors’ dogs, as legend has it. It was created in 1965 by a group of bored vacationers in Washington State who cobbled together an activity one afternoon using a variety of lonely sports gear. Pickleball is, for the seven people reading this who haven’t read about it somewhere else, a racket sport played on a small court using a plastic ball with holes in it. What is round, yellow, goes “thwock-thwock-thwock,” and actually benefited from COVID-19? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |